Review: The Vault dir. Dan Bush

In a world where originality in horror films has long since died, The Vault is perhaps one of the most fun films of late to mash it up with the heist film to create a truly unique love child that’s both weird and provides enough scares to make this one strange B-movie to catch in cinemas.

Two sisters and their brother rob a bank to save their family, only to find that there’s not much money to begin with. That is, until a mysterious employee suggests that they head to the basement and crack open the vault. Little do they know what eldritch horrors they are about to unleash upon themselves, and may just have to make the run for their lives.

The Vault has some obvious overarching problems with its storyline. The protagonists are difficult to really care about, especially the reason why they even decided to make the logical jump straight to doing a bank robbery. The estranged sisters (Taryn Manning and Francesca Eastwood) have an uneasy siblingship, feeling more like old friends than family, and much of the film lacks an emotional core to really bring it all together. But it’s a horror film, and nobody needs to care about these characters when there’s creepy murders from beyond the grave to be committed.

Even if they seem a little hacky in appearance (yes, they’re former hostages with burlap sacks on their heads), there’s something deliciously evil and outrageous about the monsters in The Vault. Are they figments of our imagination, forcing the bank robbers to kill themselves? Or are they actual, vengeful spirits from the bank’s violent and troubled past, come to seek vengeance on those who did them wrong? It’s impossible to tell (though the film’s shock closing scene suggests one of the above), and there are some icky, squeamish deaths that the faint of heart should definitely avoid.

There’s a lot of things going on in The Vault, which does a valiant effort of trying to be scary, emotional and original all at the same time. At times it succeeds, and at others it doesn’t, to campy, goofy effect in trying to take its plot seriously, but then it whiplashes right around and gives viewers a good scare the next minute. In all, The Vault is certainly one of the more interesting B-films we’ve seen recently, with a refreshingly different plot and high enough production value that it makes the scares believable, and certainly worth a watch if you’re looking for a most unusual heist/horror flick.